Spirituality

SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality in the Anglican tradition is deeply intertwined with everyday experience. Because God created our world and everything in it and pronounced it good, and because God in Jesus entered into our world and lived a human life, we believe that all of creation is holy and that all the events and experiences of daily life can reveal God to us. Anglican spirituality has nourished many poets, preachers, and saints whose words hint at manifold ways of seeking and finding God in life and life in God.Trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.

William WordsworthChrist behind and before me,

Christ beneath and above me,

Christ with me and in me,

Christ around and about me,

Christ on my left and my right,

Christ when I rise in the morning,

Christ when I lie down at night,

Christ in each heart that thinks of me,

Christ in each mouth that speaks of me,

Christ in each eye that sees me,

Christ in each ear that hears me.

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

New every morning is the love

our wakening and uprising prove;

through sleep and darkness safely brought,

restored to life, and power, and thought.

John KebleTeach me, my God and King,

in all things thee to see,

and what I do in anything,

to do it as for thee.

George HerbertWho am I, what am I, and so on: these questions are always floating about in me: and then I bump against some exact fact – a letter, a person, and come to them again with a great sense of freshness.

Virginia WoolfIt is Thou who makest the sun bright, together with the ice, it is Thou who createst the rivers and the salmon all along the river. That the nut-tree should be flowering, O Christ, it is a rare craft; through Thy skill comes the kernel, Thou fair ear of our wheat . . . beside this, what miracle is greater?

From A Celtic MiscellanyTo have blessings and to prize them is to be in Heaven: to have them and not to prize them is to be in Hell.

Thomas TraherneThe sense of wonder. That is our sixth sense. And it is the natural religious sense.

D.H. LawrenceEach one of us is already in a relationship with God before we’ve ever thought about it.

Rowan WilliamsSince the new kingdom has been set up in the world, men are no longer to be taught that they are to seek God . . . but that God is seeking them.

F.D. Maurice

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

was blind, but now I see!

John NewtonEven though God cannot be comprehended, God can be loved. By love, not thought, he can be taken and held.

The Cloud of UnknowingPrayer which is mainly occupied with a result to be obtained is comparatively powerless to obtain results. The real significance of prayer lies in the fact that it is the effort and attitude of the soul which makes possible the unity of the human spirit with God; it is therefore the supreme aim of human existence.

William TemplePrayer opens the door of the psyche to the invasion of another order, which shall at its full term transform the very quality of our existence.

Evelyn UnderhillMore things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

Alfred TennysonYou are the block, God is the sculptor; you cannot know what He is hitting you for, and you never will in this life.

John ChapmanGod is always at work, but that work is not always visible . . . All we know is that we are called to pray, to trust and to live with integrity before God in such a way as to leave the door open, to let things come together so that love can come through.

Rowan Williams

We shall not cease from exploration

and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

Each day has its evening, and so also has life . . . Stay with me, Lord, for evening is coming, and the day of this fretful life is far spent. May your strength be made perfect in my weakness.

Lancelot AndrewsAll mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.

John DonneI love the angels, they stand for something we cannot otherwise express.

Friedrich von HugelThe angels keep their ancient places;

Turn but a stone and start a wing!

‘Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry, — and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Francis ThompsonBut all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian of Norwich

Office Hours

Office Hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 10 AM – 3 PM. However, you may wish to phone the office at 425-392-3215 to confirm it is open. If you have a business matter requiring attention, contact Julie Pellegrini.